


Tesseract

by jessebee



Series: Folium Curve [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, BAMF Luke, Because I said so that's why, Best use of the Force EVER, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fix-It, Fixing what JJ broke, Grief/Mourning, Han Solo Lives, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Mention of previous lovers, Slash, old lovers reunited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 15:18:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7227694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/pseuds/jessebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Luke will always come for Han.  Always.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tesseract

 

 

 

*

He is dying.

 

He's dying, and his partner's disbelieving howl hangs in the air as his body fights to breathe around the thing that's killed him, the lightsaber blade through his chest.

 

But it's the last dregs of instinct, nothing more. No match for the stark reality of furious blood-red energy and dark, dead eyes. Their twisted travesty of feeling is the last thing he sees, the vision he takes with him as his sight fails and his knees unstring and he falls, falls –

 

– falls into the abyss –

 

– which splits apart around him with a silent, deafening cry: the essence of refusal, a tangible force of complete and utter defiance.

 

_**NO** _

 

 

 

He's dreaming.

 

He knows he is, in that loose way dreams can be; he's certainly done it before. Submerged in the frigid depths, blue-shot but not so mysterious. Like his childhood world, ocean upon ocean, though the depths of space have been his chosen home for more years than he cares to count.

 

Drifting deep in the sea's cold embrace, and it'd be so easy, so very easy to just let go and sink deeper, become one with chill, indifferent relief. Ease the pain.

 

Stop fighting.

 

Because he's been fighting for so damned long now – yeah, okay, not the way they thought he should be but he had been, in his own way – him and Chewie both.

 

Chewie. Shoulda been a better goodbye there. Sorry, partner …

 

And he is _tired_ , goddammit, and everything hurts.

 

But there's the warmth of someone else with him here, entwined with him, threaded through his every nerve, heartbeat doubling his own and insisting that it not falter. Determined, exhausted but refusing to let him sink, urging him up toward the light. That other someone hadn't asked to drown but is down here with him all the same. And he has to get the kid out. Has to, because yeah, he swims now but water still just isn't Luke's thing, awesome mystical Jedi training or no –

 

 _Luke_.

 

 _Luke_.

 

…

 

 

Han opened his eyes on a shallow breath, then a little deeper one when the full agony didn't come. He hurt, a lot, but not like he had when he'd been – skewered? Did he – remember? Metal and fire, shadows and his son's eyes, and the absolute cold of the abyss –

But that wasn't where he was now.

What the nine hells?

Blurry dark gray above him, and it looked like, felt like stone, somehow; cool and solid and secure. Softness beneath him, warmth alongside him, the weight of blankets against his skin. The faint smell of brine, a faint taste of salt on his mouth.

But closer still, another scent overpowered all; a scent that said “home” right to the core of him, and threw him back decades to sand and scorching suns and eyes the blue of a white-hot summer sky.

Brutally, achingly missed, like the living heat molded down his left side and the sunlight presence in his mind, gone from the tiniest thread of too many years to the broad weave he'd been half-convinced he'd misremembered, ribboning tight through his soul, sealing a wound he'd been bleeding from for half of forever.

Adrenaline fired, hot and shaky, beneath his ribs. Dear gods. _Luke?_

_Shh. Easy now. It's all right, I've got you._

_[youalwaysdid] **Luke**. Where – **how** – _

_Shh._

More impressions now, rough silk of hair against his shoulder and the light, firm pressure of a hand on his lower chest where the worst of the pain was – Han squeezed his eyes shut. _How – I'm not – I'm dead, aren't I?_

Wry, weary amusement. _You're not._

_Well, I **should** be dead – how am I **not**? _

Motion beside him. “Not for lack of trying,” Luke said tartly, and Han took an unsteady breath, and looked.

Hair a shaggy tangle and profoundly gray now, the last of the blond strands gone. Beard fuller and gray as well, streaked dead-white at the sides, the long-ago farmboy vanished into this much older man, tried and worn. His face was lined, dark fatigue bruises under his eyes – hells, he looked about Chewie's age and a rough time had getting there. And still Luke – still, hands down, the best thing Han had ever seen.

It welled up inside him then, unstoppable: the same feeling that had swamped him for years whenever he'd looked at Luke, the desire only a part of something so huge that there'd been times Han'd had all he could do just to breathe around it.

And right now it was exhausting. “Hey, kid,” he whispered, his voice a slurred trickle, no clue what he was going to say until he heard it sneak out of his mouth. “Y'look tired.”

Luke's lips parted and his eyes got bright. “Rescuing you's hard work, old man,” he said hoarsely. The long-worn Jedi cloak of dispassion was nowhere to be seen, the connection between them awash with trembling, tangled things.

Maybe it was that which drove the next words. “Thanks. Owe you one.”

The brightness shimmered. “Think nothing of it.” Their own private give-and-take, a code that went back thirty years to hibernation sickness and a sand storm on Tatooine. But Luke's voice broke on the last word. His head went down, coming to rest just below Han's shoulder, and his breath shuddered through the fabric of Han's shirt, twinning with the utter relief that surged from him, hot-cold-shaky under Han's skin.

Han turned his own head to rest his cheekbone against Luke's hair. The gray was a little coarser than the blond had been, just as Han remembered, and the feel of it sparked warmth deep in his chest, heart-fire where he'd been cold for so long. No clue in all the worlds how any of this could possibly be real, and right now? He didn't give a good flying goddamn, either.

With the last of rapidly fading energy he turned his hand as well and caught at Luke's fingers where they lay against his chest. They shifted, twined with his own, gently at first and then with a strengthening grip that said fear and safety and desperation and apology and love. Han smiled, just a pull at the corners of his mouth, closer to content than he'd been in years, and closed his eyes.

 

…

 

When he considered the world the next time, Han thought he might – maybe – actually be awake. He squinted and blinked against the last of the fuzziness.

He was alone, but he wasn't. Luke's lifesense rode just there, in his mind. Not the almost-oneness he thought he remembered from earlier – today?, but the familiar underswell that had been a touchpoint of his life for decades, the sense of “not alone” that had become such a huge part of him that the loss had driven him out, away from Leia, away from home. Not that moving filled the void; it just made it easier to lie to himself.

The blunt reality of it now, after so long, stung at the back of Han's eyes. He caught it, blinked it back before it could spill. Think about something else.

Such as, had he really been talking to Luke that way, in his own head? Mind to mind? He could count on two hands the number of times that had ever happened before, and never so clearly, as easy as Luke's voice in his ear. If that had been real … what else had changed?

A cautious attempt raised his head, and his arms seemed good for something now other than useless weight. The dull ache in his middle threatened to become more than dull when Han tried the muscles there, but the searing pain had faded. It felt more now like the aftermath of a galaxy-class, knock-down drag-out fight – that he'd lost – than a sword thrust through the chest.

A lightsaber, to be exact.

Wielded by his own son.

The bolt of pain whited everything out, like taking the thrust all over again.

“Han!”

He came back to himself held tight in Luke's arms, shaking, his own hands knotted harsh and sharp in the small of Luke's back. Sheltered. Braced against the storm of desperate grief ripping him apart and threatening to slag his very bones, the mourning he'd never been able to face. No choice now. _Ben. Oh, Ben._

The low sound of Luke's voice, felt as much as heard or maybe not heard at all – it didn't matter. He was _there_ , where Han could hold onto him, security more priceless than even the _Falcon_. “I had to,” Han choked out, barely aware of what he was saying. “I _had_ to. Had to try.”

“Of course you did,” Luke murmured fiercely, a soothing rumble against Han's skin, a warm refuge in his mind. Understanding as no one else, even Leia, ever possibly could. “There's always a chance. Always a choice.”

 _And he's made his. Now – now I gotta make mine._ Han shuddered again, hard, and turned his face from wet cloth into the warm curve of Luke's neck. Fingers slipped into his hair and moved in tiny, gentle sweeps against his scalp. They and Han's jagged breathing, and the faint, sonorous pulse of the sea, were the only movements, the only sounds, for a long time.

 

 

But even the most violent storms wear themselves out eventually, and the things caught in their fury are drowned in the depths. Or washed up, forever changed, onto the shore.

 

...

 

“How the hell'd you get to me, anyway?” Han decided he finally felt good enough to care about the answer. He'd slept again, or maybe he'd passed out, whatever. But he woke this time to his body feeling a little more like it all belonged to him, including his stomach. Luke had been pleased, and the flash of his smile had woken a slender thread of something else in Han's belly.

Now Luke finished setting aside the bowls that had held some sort of a light seafood stew, which Han had surprised himself by eating nearly all of, and sat back down in the chair next to Han's bed. The light – and only now had Han noticed the window – had shifted and it caught Luke in stark relief. Brightness limned the folds of his worn tunic and pants, glinted off the exposed bionics of his right hand, and picked out the fine, faint scars on his cheek, the ones the beard didn't cover. “I've never left you, Han. I swore to you I wouldn't.”

“Sure. You just weren't there.” And he saw Luke's minute flinch, but Han couldn't take it back now. “I know you kept a little Force 'feeler' out on me, 's not what I meant. How'd you get to Starkiller from – where the hell are we, anyway?”

“The natives call it Ahch-To.” Which didn't clear up a damn thing. “It's about ninety percent salt-water ocean, but the salts are different enough that our type of human can't eat most of the fish without considerable work, which the Empire apparently didn't care to do. They never had more than a tiny base here, but the Jedi – “

Han narrowed his eyes as Luke went into “lecture” mode. Delaying tactic, and one he recognized: baffle 'em with a little side-slide bullshit when you don't wanna answer the question. He counted himself a past grandmaster of the technique, and he'd never liked being on the other end. “Luke.”

“ … Han?”

“That's all really fascinatin', but it ain't what I asked. You must've already been there, but how'd you grab me?” His eyebrows pulled together. “And where's Chewie, and Rey and Finn?”

Luke stilled. He took a deeper breath, in and out, and Han saw, and felt, him reach for calm, the same way he'd reached for that damned black glove for so many years. One corner of the still-beautiful mouth pulled up in a smile that didn't make it near those pale blue eyes. “I can't answer for them, Han. This planet is half the galaxy away, and I didn't physically leave it. But there is no distance in the Force.”

And maybe the food had hit Han's system with a little reboot, or maybe it was just reality finally, finally slapping him in the face, because it felt like his brain abruptly switched back on as Luke's words registered.

– _no distance in the Force._

He'd heard right. He just wasn't believing what he'd heard.

Han stared, seeing the exhaustion still written in Luke's face and the slope of his shoulders. Remembering Luke's essence, his lifeforce wrapped so far into Han's own that they'd been nearly one person, and Luke holding him. Holding him together. Holding him to this side of that final jump. Refusing to let him go.

Only now understanding the other thing he'd felt: the immense riptide of power that'd caught him – implacable, unstoppable – and still only barely enough.

Realized, with a shot of pure ice up his spine, that if he _had_ jumped, Luke would have gone with him.

Sweet fucking hells.

“You... You _**pulled**_ _**me**_ _**here**_?”

“I heard you shout,” Luke said after an endless, eerie moment, his voice utterly calm. Eyes wide, seeing something a billion parsecs away. Or nothing at all. “I heard you shout, and I felt you, what you were trying to – and I saw him turn, and walk out to meet you. And the galaxy – everything – paused – And he lit his 'saber.”

Luke's gaze snapped back and the facade shattered, naked anguish hitting Han like a blaster charge, inside and out, before Luke squeezed his eyes shut. “I couldn't let you die.”

To the lowest hells with his aching body and the sting of five years' bitter loneliness; none of that mattered now. Han reached out and grabbed Luke's arm and pulled him close, hauling him onto the bed as they fell together against the wall that bordered it. Luke was shaking and Han felt it, felt everything now as the link blew open wide, everything Luke had managed to shield from him before. Desperation and terror and the depth of the love that had fueled it all, a love that still amazed Han, thirty years on.

“It's alright,” Han whispered into Luke's hair, and held him hard, and flatly refused to consider the alternative. “'s alright. We're gonna make it alright.”

 

…

 

“Nice place ya got here, real up to date.” Han braced his hands on the ancient stone wall and took another deep breath of cool air, smelling salt and the green growth that spilled down and clung to the rocks below him, and squinted into the wind.

His first foray into the world outside of the few rooms Luke lived in and slept in – and it was Luke's bed Han had been occupying, that much had been clear. That there were oceans had been obvious from the way a touch of salt and the nearly sub-sonic pulse of the sea were everywhere. And Luke had confirmed it and Han had seen it himself later on through the windows – made of clearsteel, or something like it – a long, rolling horizon of gray.

But there'd been no land in immediate sight, leading him to wonder out loud just what the heck kind of planet Luke had buried himself on, in his hunt for the mostly (in Han's opinion) mythical Jedi “first temple.”

Well, now he knew.

All the times he'd accused Luke, teasingly or otherwise, of going to the mountain top to meditate or “revelate” or hide or whatever? This time it was true. They were high up on an island that seemed to be the largest one of a couple of black rocks punching up out of the sea, and he could just about see the far distant shadow of something else, perhaps mainland, or maybe just an obscure phantom born of cloud and salt-mist.

“Little crowded, though, don't you think? All those people?” Han added, gesturing at the empty air. “'sides, usually you like things a little quieter,” he went on, the boom of a wave breaking at the island's feet far below them adding counterpoint.

“Well, I was considering going a bit further out,” Luke said, a touch of droll under his solemnity, like it was something he was relearning how to voice. “But this is where the temple is, you see.”

Han looked over at him. Luke stood at his shoulder, close enough to feel body heat if the wind hadn't been plucking it away. Braced into the air currents, the hood of his cloak thrown back and the breeze toying with his hair, he looked somehow as securely planted as the gray stone huts and walls that wound across the island's slopes and crags. He looked better this morning, too, Han decided; less like something the dianoga had dragged under. Amazing what a decent night's sleep could do.

And it had been a good night's sleep for Han, certainly; the best he remembered having in years. Part of it had been flat-out exhaustion: coming back from the dead wore a guy out, even worse than the carbon freeze and he'd been younger then.

They'd all been younger then.

Take his healing body and add in the couple of bouts of emotional whiplash and those'd be excuses enough to spend another nearly full standard day asleep in bed. But he'd spent it in Luke's arms and there was his reason, right there. The scent and feel of Luke's compact body against his own, plastered together in the small bed; the sure flow of his old lover's lifesense just below his own awareness, like the slow, warm burn of the best Corellian brandale.

He'd stirred half-awake a couple of times. Once from a dream of holding Luke to find that it was real, a second time to the dry touch of lips against his forehead, once, twice, again. The third time he'd felt – something – and he'd known, and reached, snagging a narrow wrist. _“Huh-uh.”_

“ _You'll have more room if I – ”_

_Han cracked one eye half-open to glare at him. “Don' be dumber'n you c'n help.”_

_A pause, which became soft mirth gusting over Han's skin as Luke lay back down beside him. “Still such a way with words,” Luke murmured as Han dragged the captured wrist across his own chest. Han felt fingers splay against his ribs – the prosthetic ones, he registered sleepily – and Luke sighed. “Force, but I've missed you.”_

The words and their truth had followed Han back down into sleep, and they teased at him now as he looked at Luke. There was something “off”, something – not right. Something that Han had a sneaking hunch would turn into distance if he let it, but that wasn't going to happen, not this time. He had no clue what it was, yet, but it'd come to him if he didn't think about it, like knowing the best route to take cargo of dubious legality and which way to break in a fight. He _had_ learned a few things in thirty years.

“And that's it? Those rooms underground?” Han asked, coming back to the subject at hand. “Your 'first temple'?”

“Those rooms underground are more the – support system, if you like,” Luke said, “and there are more levels than you've seen. The lowest is below water-level; that's the hangar.” That got Han's attention, but Luke was going on. “What you see now, all this – this rock above the sea – _this_ is the temple.”

Han pulled his eyebrows down and looked around, giving a slow once-over to the hive-y looking gray structures behind and to the sides of him. They, and the huts and walls lower down, were all made out of nothing more than piled-up rocks, as far as he could tell. “Didn't exactly go all out on their building materials up here, did they?”

Luke gave him a look for that before turning himself to contemplate the buildings, which sent a tickle through Han's gut because Luke had long since stopped giving much weight to Han's snarky remarks about matters Jedi and otherwise. “That's pretty much the point, Han.”

The point of what? Han let his face express his opinion of that, and spread his hands in sharp question when his eyebrows alone didn't do the trick. Luke eyed him sideways and gave the faintest hint of a sigh. Han wanted to cheer. Anything that chipped that damn – reserve.

“All of this is meditation. Training in both active and passive, learning to feel the Force in all things.”

Oh, he just loved it when Luke got cryptic. “Rocks?”

“And plants, and ocean, but I think the rocks probably are – ” Luke's jaw tightened fractionally “ – were, the most useful.”

Han pursed his mouth. “Rocks.”

“The dwellings on the slopes were torn down and rebuilt many times. To practice using the Force.”

“To move rocks.”

Luke shook his head. “Not like that, or not only like that. To learn to listen to them, be one with them. Then the student would know where they could be placed to make a stable structure.”

After so many years with Luke, it hardly made Han itchy anymore when statements like that almost made sense. Hell, even his lack of worry didn't worry him. Much. He crossed his arms and settled his shoulders more firmly inside his jacket. Even through Luke's borrowed shirt, heavier than Han's own now-ruined one had been, the wind was beginning to bite. “Moved a lot of rocks yourself, huh?”

An unexpected flash of a smile. “Not so many on Dagobah, no. Moved R2 though, more than a few times. He didn't like it much.”

“I'll bet.” Han's eyebrows went up; that might be a story he hadn't heard. “Planet full of 'squishy, slimy, buzzing things,' wasn't it? Good thing you didn't have Goldenrod.”

Luke looked at him, eyes widening; then to Han's delight, he threw back his head and laughed out loud. When had he last heard Luke laugh? The sound went through him, sharp as the wind in its own way, and Han shivered.

Luke noticed. “Let's go back in,” he said, still smiling, “the winds here have teeth sometimes.”

Han followed him back across the small flagstone yard and into the largest of the buildings where the lift was, and noted that there didn't seem to be any entry pad or handle on this side, or even an actual door, come to that. The flat rock in front of the lift door just – moved, apparently at Luke's silent command. “I'll bet that keeps out the great Force 'unwashed'.”

“I didn't find it right away myself,” Luke said, gesturing Han in. “The old Order could be a bit – cryptic, about things.”

“Not a trait you share, of course,” Han said, dryly.

Luke threw him another look. “'Cryptic' is frequently useful, in teaching.” He straightened, his levity dropping away as the lift moved downward. “People tend to remember what they have to work to discover.”

Han leaned against the wall, more tired already than he wanted to admit, and eyed him. “Well, right now I want to discover what's in that hangar you said's down there.”

“Not a lot.”

 _Not a lot_ was right. Not terribly big and almost empty, with only Luke's old X-wing and an ancient little transport skiff of a type Han had only seen once before. He could berth the _Falcon_ in here, no problem at all, but she wouldn't have a whole huge lot of company.

The space echoed with their footsteps on the bedrock; the sound-dampeners had to be off. Or maybe just weren't there at all. This whole place was clearly a relic, and not much warmer than outside. “They better not've had many guests,” Han said, turning in a slow circle. “This place is _tiny_. They airlocked the ships in?”

“Over there.” Luke nodded toward a far corner. In the low light, Han could just make out the color difference that marked the edges of a 'lock lift platform.

And with the entrance underwater, you didn't see it until you looked for it. Very neat. Han squinted at the antique skiff and started toward it. “How's that thing handle?”

“I have no idea.”

Han stopped dead, and turned, and stared the question at him.

“I looked at it after I got here, after I discovered the hangar, just to be sure that it wouldn't fly.”

The wording tripped a little chill down Han's spine. “Wouldn't fly.” That got him one of those non-committal sorts of looks that Han had gotten way too good at reading over the years, mainly out of self-defense. “Good thing you've got the X-wing, then.”

A quiet breath from Luke. “That doesn't fly anymore either.”

 _Sonuva –_ Oh, he had a bad feeling about this. “Luke ...”

“Anyone who arrived would have their own ship. I admit, I didn't exactly plan on you.”

“What the hell are you … you're sayin' you stranded yourself here. On purpose.”

“And you as well, now. Han, I'm sorry,” Luke said gravely. “I didn't – ”

“Why the _hells_ didja pull a stupid stunt like that for?” Han's voice ricocheted off the walls and ceiling, and frankly, it felt good to shout.

Of course it bounced off Luke, too, standing there behind the Great Jedi Wall. “Because I have no intention of leaving here,” Luke replied, quiet and even. “I never did.”

Even knowing, somehow, that Luke was going to say something ridiculous, shock still ran Han's nervous system like a stun bolt.

“You're better off with me gone, you and Leia; and everyone, the galaxy is safer with me here.”

Anger flared the edges off the shock and Han welcomed the heat. He glared at Luke. Of all the – “First off, wherever you got the stupid idea that me and Leia'd be better off without you? _Wrong_. We frikkin' _came apart at the welds_ without you. I told you she asked me to try and take out Starkiller, an' talk to Ben? First time I'd seen her in more than four years,” he bit out, and had the momentary consolation of seeing Luke start. “Yeah. She couldn't look at me without seein' everything she's lost and I couldn't deal with the, the _hole_ in my chest where you weren't there anymore.

“And second, what the frik do you mean – 'safer'? Safer from _what_?”

“From _me_.” Tension put cracks in the Wall; Han could actually see it in the way Luke held himself. “From me, and all the damage I could do if I'm not strong enough, if I can't hold on.”

“Hold on – ”

“To the Light. You don't know – don't you see how close I've come?”

“Close to _what_?” Maybe he sounded like the town idiot, repeating words, but –

“To _turning_ , Han! Slipping into the Dark Side!” Blue eyes suddenly blazed. “When they killed my students – when Ben – ” Luke's face contorted. “ _Anger_. So much. I wanted to – ”

Han knew; he'd felt it erupt over the lightyears between them like a sun going nova before the connection between them had burned out and there'd been – nothing. The faintest thread. Proof of life, but nothing else.

“I had to shut it down. But now – ” Anguish squeezed Luke's eyes shut and he turned, took a few steps away as if he suddenly had to move. “Now I've interfered; it may already be too late.”

The words didn't compute. Hells, the entire concept made no sense at all, like a child's scribblings presented as hyperdrive calculations. “No,” Han said flatly, as sure of that as he'd ever been of anything, ever. “No. Not possible.”

“I interfered.” The words sounded like they were being ground out between stones.

“Yeah, you did! And by the way, thank you very much!”

Luke spun to face him, and there was a terrible look in his blue eyes. “ _I interfered_. Don't you see? There was a reason you were going to die, and _I stopped it._ I've _changed_ things and not for the greatest good, but my own! My hubris, because I love you! Like at Bespin. Like my – “ He dragged in a deep breath that sounded like it hurt. A lot. “Like my father tried to do for my mother, because he loved her, he used the Force to change what was meant to be. How is what I did any – ?!”

And that was the absolute last fucking straw.

“ _Enough!!_ ” Han shouted. “How the hell'd you come up with – it's not a damn thing like that and you'd know it if you'd only think about it!”

“Han – “

“ _No!!_ ” Han stalked a few steps himself and then turned on his heel to glare at Luke, his temper finally, gloriously off the leash. He was _done_ with all that hard-won “patient understanding” crap – this was long, long overdue. “No, you listen to me this time, Luke! Your father,” he bit the word off, “ _burned down the galaxy_ when it wouldn't give him what he wanted. That ain't love, that's selfishness, pure and simple. It was all about him, right up to the end!”

He stabbed out with a finger. “But you?”

Han strode back, not stopping until he was just inches from Luke, and grabbed his shoulders with both hands. “The whole galaxy craps on you and what do _you_ do?

“You give. You give and you give and you don't ask a damn thing in return, and you never have. You're harder on yourself than anybody else. You almost killed yourself for me – again – shut up, I'm not done yet!” when Luke opened his mouth.

Han looked at him hard. “I ain't no philosopher and the Force is your thing, not mine, but I gotta believe – look, you've been on about the Light and the Dark Sides practically since we first met, and I'm pretty sure I've learned one thing, watching you all these years. What's the Light side if it's not love? And that's _you_ – love walking.”

His anger had somehow nearly vanished, overwhelmed by the frustration and the longing that'd been beneath it all along. Han cupped Luke's face, the beard rough-soft against the palms of his hands. Which were shaking, he noted absently. “ _Dammit_ , Luke. About everything you've done since I've known you has been about people other than you. If that's not love – if that's not _Light_ – then what the hell is?”

Luke was staring at him, mouth open and eyes wide. He looked like a stunned Ewok. “You ...” His throat moved as he swallowed. “I … I never … didn't … ”

Han didn't know whether to laugh or cry. “Never thought of it like that?”

“I … _no_.” Luke swallowed again. He curled his fingers around Han's wrists. “I'm – not _like_ that. Han ...”

Revelation was all fine and dandy, but he'd been fatally stabbed three days ago and this shit was tiring and he still wasn't as young as he'd used to be. Han caught Luke's wrists in his own fingers and pulled, dropping them both onto a stone bench which was, thank any gods, just a step away. Sit down before you fall down, always a good plan in his book.

“Kid, you are _exactly_ like that. How many times did they send you out on some impossible job with half a prayer, just 'cause you had 'Jedi' hanging by your name, and you'd do it, you'd save the planet or whatever – and then you'd walk away. Leia and them'd be all ready to leverage it and you wouldn't do it. Oh no. Had to be their own decision, you wouldn't lead anybody anywhere, even for their own good, wouldn't ask anything of them. Made Leia crazy sometimes.”

Memories washed through, sluicing from the bigger picture to the smaller one. “Made me crazy sometimes, too, y'know?” Han said more softly, resigned. Might as well have it all out now. He looked down at their hands, still clasped wrist to wrist. A warrior's hold. “Lotta times I – I couldn't figure what you wanted – hells, even _if_ you wanted – 'cause you wouldn't ask.”

“ _Han_.”

His name vibrated the air, low and intense, and anguish flooded into the link. Han looked up into blue eyes that were suddenly too bright, and tightened his grip. “Hey, no. No. I knew you loved me, I never doubted that. Never have.”

That didn't touch the man in front of him, lost in pain that prickled under Han's own skin as well. “I failed you there, too, didn't I? Not enough that I lost Ben, I – ” Luke shook his head and closed his eyes, lashes sweeping down before the brightness could spill. “I'm sorry.”

Han rolled his eyes. “You did not fail me. You didn't fail, period.” Gods, but the kid would play martyr for the galaxy, take it on his shoulders even if it wasn't his to – aw, _**hells**_. It snapped into focus then, the “something off” that would drive the widening space between them.

Anger roared back to life and jabbed, knife-sharp, through Han's fatigue, twisted with pain and love and other things he was too tired to unravel. He pulled his hands out of Luke's slackened grip and took the other man by the upper arms again, and shook him. “Luke.”

Luke's head jerked up and he slipped out of Han's hold with a twist and a glare, which proved that he hadn't been neglecting personal training, whatever the hell else he'd been doing.

Han recaptured one wrist and glared right back. “You,” he said through his teeth, “did not lose Ben. There were three of us there and none of us could hold him. We all gave him everything we could, but _he_ made the choice.” Pressure built in his chest; he made himself breathe through it. “I said stuff, I know I did, but I have _never_ blamed you, you idiot! It was _not your damned fault._ ”

“I trained him, Han!” Luke broke his grip again and surged up off the bench, stalking a couple of steps before turning around in a swirl of robes. Angry, like he never was, not in years. “I should have seen – ”

“Seen what?!” Han came back to his feet as well. “That he was too damn fascinated with his grandfather? We knew that, Leia and me, before you did! And we decided – _all of us_ – that the more he knew about the bastard, the less he'd like it!”

“And we were wrong!”

“Yes we were! _We_ were, Luke, _all_ of us!” Han pulled in a shuddering breath, the pressure building again. “Leia and I taught him, and you taught him, and he listened to that bastard Snoke and he made his own decision. _His_ decision, Luke; _his_ choice!”

“I should have stopped him!”

“How? The whole high'n'mighty Jedi Order couldn't stop Vader, could it? All the right stuff, right training, goddamned hero of the goddamn Wars and he still turned. There was something wrong in him! Like there's something wrong in – my son.”

“There's good in him, too!” Luke said fiercely.

“I know that!” Han snapped back, throwing one arm wide. “I know that. But this time,” he gritted out, “whatever I gotta do, he does _not_ get _his_ turn to burn the galaxy while we look for it!”

The world paused while they stared at each other, breathing hard. Han's eyes were stinging. Then Luke's face twisted and he turned away.

No, damn it all. Not this time.

Han lunged across the space between them and grabbed Luke into a desperate hug. Luke fought it, fought him, and Han felt the gathering around them, a charge like subtle lightning, building, lifting the hairs on his skin. Scraped and overstretched nerves jangled violent warning, shouting to back away like he would from a live concussion grenade, but deeper instinct said no. This was Luke.

Luke wouldn't hurt him.

“Stop,” Han whispered, his voice thick, his breathing ragged with tears and building pain. In another moment he'd lose his grip. “Luke, stop. Please.”

And Luke did. Every muscle in him wire-taut under Han's arms, energy trembling in the very air around them. His voice was low and thick. “I turned too, Han; remember?”

Yeah, like that was gonna work. Han remembered, all right. Remembered the night Luke had finally told them the truth of Death Star Two, still bleeding inside; remembered holding both of them, Leia's tears, enough alcohol to float the _Falcon_. He remembered the ending.

He smiled into Luke's hair. “For about two minutes. You're good clear through, kid, you just can't shake it. And I still love you, and I still don't blame you, and it Still. Ain't. Your. Fault.”

Hair caught against Han's chin as Luke's head shook once, in slow motion –

Everything collapsed, energy imploding, sucked in and vanished along with the tension that'd been holding Luke a micron away from explosion. No bench close enough this time and he couldn't stop their slide to the floor as Luke folded like a deck of sabacc cards and the riptide of his emotions buckled Han's knees as well. The stone was brutally hard and Luke an awkward weight half in his lap and Han wasn't letting go for anything.

Oceans-deep guilt and regret black as space, years of solitary grief spent tearing apart what had been done and not done, an endless fruitless chase like light down a black hole. No return, no escape, no respite, and all of it painted over with equally endless, hopeless longing for what he couldn't, did not dare to have. Family. Leia. Han.

 _You do have me, you stubborn idiot, y'always have._ Arms tight, all Han could do was hold on and take it, let it all wash through him and refuse to drown. His turn now to drag Luke up toward the light.

Take everything he could, if by sharing it he could maybe somehow shoulder off some of the burden that never shoulda been Luke's in the first place. Divert some of the senseless guilt, the pain that felt like it was going break Luke in two, that would have long since snapped a lesser man.

 _You got me, I'm here._ _I'm right here. I love you._

He had no clue how long it went on before they surfaced, slowly, and Luke's labored breathing began to ease. No tears, Han realized as time and space realigned themselves a bit, the hurt was too deep for that. But there were threads of light now, pinpoints like distant stars in the blackness, and faint glimmerings of dawn across the ocean.

Luke shifted against him, hands flexing where they'd been twisted in Han's borrowed shirt. The hangar floor had gotten harder, somehow, and Han's left hip was telling him all about it. His chest ached dully, and his arms were wrapped around Luke's shoulders and one hand was carded into the too-long hair, holding him. Just holding him.

Glimmerings. Nothing solved, probably, not by a couple hundred parsecs. But it felt a helluva lot closer to hope than it had been.

He was rocking Luke, Han became aware – a tiny motion. It felt right, so he kept on doing it.

… _Han?_

_Hmm?_

… _I …_

“You're welcome,” Han murmured. The smile that picked at one side of his mouth felt kinda like a thing completely new and fresh. “If you really wanna thank me? Don't suppose you've got any alcohol on this rock?”

Stillness. Then, raggedly but with genuine humor, Luke started to laugh, and that was more than reward enough. _That_ felt like a goddamned miracle.

 

…

 

Sadly there was no alcohol, but there was a meal (more fish), and a return to the bed into which Han bullied Luke as well. The kid was clearly as exhausted as Han himself was, but he felt … lighter. Almost like some physical weight had been lessened. Han decided he'd be happy with that. After they'd both gotten some sleep – more sleep, he amended. It was hell gettin' old.

“You look … ” Luke sounded like he was considering the perfect word.

Han knew that particular tone of old, and the teasing he felt running beneath it – still a little shaky, but real enough. “What?”

“... smug.”

Han considered being offended. “Smug? Me? Never happen.”

Luke's snort was eloquent, and Han grinned. He rolled carefully onto his side and propped his head up on one hand. The bedside glow threw more than enough light for him to see Luke clearly, bearded and gray and solidly real, lying there next to him.

Where he belonged, dammit.

Han rested his free hand on Luke's chest, just inside the open shirt, feeling hair and warm skin under his palm. The kind of casual touch he'd never, ever take for granted again. “Luke, 's time to come back. We need you.”

“Han – ” Luke's gaze slipped away to the side but Han wasn't having that, not now, and dug his fingers into Luke's arm instead until the other man's eyes came back to his, startled.

“We need you. _I_ need you,” he said, soft and intense. “But more than that, there's a girl, Rey, barely more than a kid. She flies a ship like she's part of it and she's more hooked into the Force than anybody I've seen since you.”

Luke nodded slowly. “I felt her awaken. She was there, close to you, at the end.”

“Yeah. I figured she was on that base somewhere, she'd been caught earlier by the Order, taken by … by Ren.” He set his shoulders; that was the name he'd use from now on. “He had to've realized how sensitive she is.” He met Luke's eyes. “He'll try and turn her.”

A half-smile tugged up one corner of Luke's mouth. “I think there's little chance of that succeeding now.”

Han looked the question at him.

“She watched him murder someone she'd come to care about, a lot.”

It took a second for that to land. “Me? She barely knew me!”

“Sometimes you don't need very long to know.” Luke abruptly grinned at him – the slightly wicked, sunlit smile that Han had so missed. It _did_ things to him, that smile. Something long-dormant but primed over these last few days, fired low in Han's belly. “Unless, of course, you're a stubborn Corellian – ”

“Hey!”

“ – and then it can take a lot longer.”

Han leaned threateningly close. Luke didn't budge. “Luke.”

“Yeah?”

The mischief heating those blue eyes belonged to a much younger Luke, and damned if it didn't light Han up nearly as hard and fast as it ever had, age go hang. “Shut up,” he breathed, and closed Luke's mouth with his own.

Touch and taste shocked through him as Luke kissed him back, a homecoming years overdue. Fingers knotted into Han's shirt and a low groan trembled through him; his, Luke's, it didn't matter. What did matter was the electric tingle firing every inch of his skin awake, like being shoved through an unshielded energy flow. _Yes._

 _Yes_. _Finally_.

Fatigue fled, banished to some other planet Han wasn't obliged to be on. Desire wasn't a sure thing these days and hadn't been a thing at all for a while, but twenty years abruptly vanished to wherever the fatigue had gone. Luke pulled at him and Han was suddenly on top, his hips settling between Luke's sprawled legs, Luke's arms wrapping secure around his back. Familiar, perfect fit, like they'd always had – like they'd both been made for this.

Han groaned and knew it for his own this time as the downward rush of blood left him almost dizzy. Luke echoed the sound, vibrations chasing between them, and Han's breath hitched at the feel of Luke hardening against him, arousal twinning and doubling, joining, swelling like hyperdrive energies under their skin. “Missed you,” Han choked out, burying his face in the warmth of tender skin beneath Luke's ear, beard tickling his cheekbone. “Gods, I've missed you.”

“Missed you too, so much – oh – ” Luke gasped, artlessly, his hips pushing up. His hands tightened on Han's back. “Han, I'm sorry – ”

Okay, no. Han pulled up and kissed him deeply, tonguing away whatever else Luke might have said. “I know,” he said when he let them both breathe. “Enough. I'll let you apologize for that, but that's it. 's over now. You're not leavin' me again.”

Luke stared up at him, his eyes very dark, lips parted like words were hovering there. But he slid fingers into Han's hair instead and kissed him ferociously. When he let Han breathe again, the glitter in his eyes ran another jolt of power up Han's spine, adding to the hum. Hands wrapped into the back of Han's shirt. “Time for this to come off,” Luke growled.

Han kissed him again. “Time for all of it to come off.”

Four hands wrestled the offending fabric and each other as well, inevitable with two grown men in a bed not really big enough for them both. “Well, that was smooth,” Han grumbled, finally sitting up and swinging his legs off the edge to deal with pants and underwear. Behind him, Luke started to laugh, low and husky. The sound wrapped memory around Han like a pair of hands, warmly secure, sweetly knowing. “Are you laughing at me, junior?” he mock-growled, dropping cloth to the floor and turning back around.

“'With', Han; it's laughing 'with' you. Besides, would I do that?” Luke asked, wearing nothing now himself but teasing and invitation.

“You would, actually, Luke.” Han took a moment to admire the view, toned muscles still firm beneath older skin. Han slung a leg across Luke's thighs and leaned in close. “Don't forget, I _know_ you.”

Luke grinned up at him. “And that's a bad thing?”

 _No lover like an old lover, no lover as sweet –_ It caught him hot behind his breastbone and dropped straight down to his groin. A thousand nights when they'd been new and wild, a thousand more caught between Luke and Leia, three stable points. Balanced. Until …

Luke's hand caressed up Han's cheekbone and into his hair and pulled him in, and when the kiss ended the world had reversed itself on him. “That was a sneaky trick,” he accused, delighted, as Luke pressed him into the mattress.

“I learned from the best,” Luke murmured and kissed him again hard, and the time for talking was over.

Han spread his legs and sighed as Luke fell between them, delicious friction starting ripples of heat across his skin. He swept his hands up Luke's back and down again to settle them on the firm curves of Luke's buttocks. A little wriggle to line things up and – yes. Oh yeah.

Sensation flooded through him, fountaining up from the base of his spine and pushing out in a low moan. Luke's mouth grazed Han's neck, warm and shivery with the faint threat of teeth, licking moistly upward to catch an earlobe, and the threat became reality. Han shuddered with the jolt of it and felt it go through Luke as well as electricity arced between them. The link bloomed open wide as Luke let go of the door, spilling them together in desire.

No words Han had ever found came even half-way to describing it. Sunlight sparking diamante off the ocean's tips; the rippling silver flash of katar fish schooling through clear green shallows. The moment of jumping to lightspeed, that bright tingle of power surfing just below his skin.

Belonging. Knowing and known, a beautiful, ferocious safety. Bare hints of an unfathomed power leashed only by innate good and a will of iron, housed in the body of a bewilderingly gentle spirit. The most dangerous man Han had ever met. The only man he'd ever loved.

Quicksilver shivers followed hands sweeping across skin, arousal a tangible heat force, moisture springing up in its wake. Han wound fingers into Luke's hair, rough silk strands and the half-tickle of beard brushing sensation across his collarbone as Luke slipped down his body. Relearning Han's nipples with tongue and fingers and Han pushed up eagerly into the touches, twisted half-away again with a laughing gasp from the stroke over the ticklish spot on that one left rib. Launched his own joyful rediscovery of every inch of Luke within reach, charting ribs and waist solid with reassuring maturity, the sharp jut of shoulder blade and how the muscle around it shivered beneath his fingers.

And it was joy that moved them, liquid pleasure over and around and through until the very air Han breathed flowed with light. A shared climb, slow but unstoppable, pulse and ebb, urgency made bearable by each uncovering of familiar newness – the slide of sweat over Luke's skin under Han's fingers, the supple ladder of Luke's spine, the dusting of hair sheltered in the hollow below the sweet rise of buttocks. Han gripped and caressed, sliding fingertips into the shadowed valley between, and Luke froze, a tremor starting beneath his skin, before he groaned roughly against Han's breastbone and thrust down hard.

Slow flared into a hotter blaze as their erections slid against each other, friction throwing sparks that echoed tracer-white behind Han's squeezed-shut eyes. He hooked his ankles behind Luke's calves and pushed up, locking them tight together as Luke began to move.

The world disappeared as passion seared along his nerves and coiled low in his belly. Ecstasy looped between them like a runaway feedback circuit, like molten plasma, pressure building the sweet ache in his balls and all hells, he was gonna go off like a kid with his first love if he didn't find a brake. Like the first time he and Luke had made love.

And he didn't care at all. The rush was too sweet, too incredibly precious after all this time and it was Luke, finally Luke –

 _Han_? A gasp, and Han dragged his eyes open to meet blue ones so bright they damn near glowed, and knew what Luke was asking.

“No,” he whispered and arched his head up to lick across Luke's mouth. He pulled Luke's hand from his hip and knotted their fingers together, needing the hold. “Full throttle. Let's fly – ”

Luke's moan shivered hot into the depths of Han's chest, a helpless tidal surge of everything too profound for words, everything they had been, everything they were.

_fly with me, with me, always_

Heat, light, increasing friction. Movements came faster, hips in tandem, pleasure like throbs of liquid light inside and Han lost himself to it, to Luke, until there was nothing left separating them, skin only a conduit to ecstasy. Pleasure surging, leaping in waves toward the ultimate, unstoppable, until it crested deep in Han's belly, in his very blood, bursting up and outward in vast pulses of being, he and Luke together, one, thrust into infinity. Soaring on that infinite moment.

Drifting slowly down, gradually becoming aware again of Luke as separate body – the sweaty, wonderful weight of him plastered close along Han's side, and the way their hands in a tight lover's knot rested on Han's chest, riding the swell of his breathing. The warm brilliance of Luke himself, that generous beautiful spirit wrapped all through Han, secure. Knowing and known.

Home.

 

…

 

He watches her coming steadily up the stairs from the sea, rarely out of sight. Whatever else the Jedi builders had had in mind for this rock, they'd understood defensive sight-lines. She appears around the last corner and aims straight for the hooded figure on the far side of the slanted grassy top. She doesn't look to the side.

The hooded figure turns, and hands, natural and prosthetic, push heavy fabric back and away. Luke simply looks at her. In full Jedi get-up, complete with beard and gray hair, he's the embodiment of the Old Reclusive Master Of Wisdom, a caricature that Han had grown up laughing at.

He's not laughing now.

The very air hums and Han can actually feel it, the electric sense of pause, power, possibility. The Force, he knows now; he'd surrendered the last of his disbelief one long-ago, unforgettable morning on Corellia when Luke had finally been able to _show_ him.

Rey stops some feet from Luke and puts her hands to her waist. With a clean motion she pulls the lightsaber hilt from her bag and offers it, silently, to Luke.

The moment seems to draw out like sticky _haba_ -candy string, full of infinite shape. The shadowed stone arch that Han leans inside of is cold against his shoulder, and Han finds he's holding his breath. The Luke of now is a little different than the Luke who had dragged Han back to life those few days ago, a lifetime ago. But the scars of years will be long in fading, and Han has never imagined himself as a miracle salve. Luke is standing on a cliff's edge and the leap of faith is, ultimately, his alone.

Han does what he can, pushing love and acceptance through their link, the unchangeable fact that it just doesn't matter what Luke chooses, Han will be there. Whether it's war or peace or binder cuffs and being stuffed into one of the _Falcon's_ cargo holds, Luke is simply not getting away from him again.

 _Binder cuffs?_ Rich with laughing disbelief.

_Nice padded ones. Only the best for you._

_Well, I feel special._

Han digs his teeth into his lower lip in a desperate bid not to snicker.

Luke paces toward her, puts out his hand – his right hand – and takes the lightsaber from Rey. Han takes a deep breath, and lets it back out.

Rey straightens and looks Luke dead in the eyes. “You need to come back with me, Master Skywalker.” Han is downwind of them, and her words carry.

“Do I?” Luke's voice is mildly questioning. “And why is that?”

Her chin comes up. “Because they need you. The Resistance, I mean. General Organa needs you. And – I guess I need you, too, to teach me. What I am.” She takes a deep breath. “T-they said you could.”

Luke says nothing.

“Maz, and the general, they said that was yours,” she goes on, nodding at the lightsaber.

“It was, but that was a very long time ago.” Luke sounds completely unmoved, although Han knows he's anything but.

Rey's back stiffens. “They _need_ you. People are getting hurt, people are dying where the First Order is taking over and nobody but the Resistance seems to care.”

Han feels the echo of Luke's pain in his own chest, but Luke's voice stays even. Remote. “My war, too, was a very long time ago.”

That's all Rey can take. “Well, mine isn't!” she snaps, and steps right up to him. “Good beings died – _Han Solo was murdered_ – to give me the chance to find you. He was sure you would help!” Betrayal cracks in her voice. “Was he wrong?”

Luke gives her a slow smile, which is clearly not what she's expecting. “Ask him yourself, if you like,” he says, and that's all the more warning Han gets as Luke looks over at him and Rey follows the motion.

She goes stark white under her desert tan, eyes popping wide and her jaw dropping. Han sees her sway. Her lips form his name, and then another word Han doesn't recognize.

“No, he's not a ghost, I promise you,” Luke says from just behind her, where he's stepped in close. “He's more trouble than any three of them.”

That is obviously his cue. “Look, kid,” Han says as he straightens up and walks forward into the sunlight, “did I _ask_ you to yank me halfway across the known galaxy? You wanted company, you coulda just – ”

Rey's whole face transforms and she shrieks something that might be his name. Han only gets a second to brace before she hurtles herself into his arms.

She's shaking and breathing hard. She wrenches back far enough to meet his eyes, brings one hand up like she's going to touch. “You're – ” It's no more than a choked whisper. Astounded, disbelieving joy practically shines out of her face before it crumples like a child's and she hides it against his shoulder.

Han's own throat goes tight as he holds her. So alive, and so stupidly young, a whiff of engine coolant and the faint dusty tang of sand still in her hair. Luke's hair had smelled like that. The reality of the years twists in his gut and he reaches out one hand to Luke, who is standing closer now and entirely too far away, and pulls him in. _Luke –_

Luke puts his arm around Han's back and tangles their fingers together. _I did say she cared._ The teasing is very gentle, and nearly does Han in right there.

 _I –_ His fingers tighten convulsively around Luke's and he turns his head, resting his forehead against Luke's temple. _I don't – I – why?_

Luke makes a sound that's just a huff of air, but the warmth and fond exasperation and love washing through feel nearly like another arm around Han's shoulders. _Because you're you, pirate. You don't see what you're really like, either, do you?_

Even if he had an answer to that, Han's throat is too clogged at the moment to get it out.

He's saved by Rey, who sucks in a deep, shuddery breath and raises her head. She looks up at him again, her eyes wet, and then at Luke. “Y-you did this.”

It's not really a question, but Luke answers it anyway. “Through the Force, yes,” he says softly, watching her closely, but he's still – remote. And _that's_ when Han realizes that it hasn't changed, that sense of pause and possibility. A breath still held.

Luke is still standing on the edge of that cliff.

Rey's hand comes up and she wraps her fingers around Luke's upper arm. “Teach me. _Please_ ,” she whispers, and under it Han hears all the determination he's already gotten acquainted with, and he has to smile though his own stomach is tightening.

 _And t_ _here's the_ _real_ _heart of it, kid_. _What do you say?_ He squeezes Luke's fingers, and because this really has almost nothing to do with teaching and they both damn well know it – _Come back to life?_

Luke's eyes meet his and between them Luke is the utter opposite of remote _._ A million things roil beneath the surface of eyes the blue of a white-hot summer sky, along with a question Luke will never, ever ask.

Han answers it anyway, because it's very simple. _I'm here._ _No matter what._

A leap of faith.

The link murmurs with the beginnings of something that feels a little like joy. “Yes,” Luke says, looking back at Rey. “I'll teach you.”

 

*

*

 

**Author's Note:**

> [6.17.16]  
> H/Luke  
> hints of past H/Leia  
> (SW:The Force Awakens AU rewrite, because That Thing that happened in the movie did not happen quite that way in my head-canon. No way)
> 
> My forever and undying gratitude to culturevulture73 for all the reasons she already knows, to HollyC for more awesome grammar thwappage and pointing out where it needed help even when I didn't want to admit it, and to Cara Loup for the most beautiful email ever. You folks lift me up.


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